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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108010">No 16. A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiley5494/pseuds/Smiley5494'>Smiley5494</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hallucinations, Post-Canon, Whumptober 2020, no 16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:28:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiley5494/pseuds/Smiley5494</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin had spent the last one and a half thousand years alone.</p><p>Still, <i>sometimes</i>, he saw the dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No 16. A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompt:</p><p>No 16. A TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY<br/>Forced to Beg | <b>Hallucinations</b> | Shoot the Hostage</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Merlin had spent the last one and a half thousand years alone.</p><p>Spending that much time effectively on your own has severe consequences to one’s mental health and general well-being. Merlin knew that, and yet he still did nothing when every hundred years or so, he saw the dead.</p><p>The first time it happened, he had no idea it was nothing but a hallucination—Arthur in all his kingly glory, with Gwen on his arm and the knights behind him. Merlin had felt nothing but relief and pure happiness at finally seeing his family again.</p><p>It didn’t last.</p><p>These knights, this Gwen, they didn’t react as Merlin had expected, instead, they merely stared at him, their eyes blank <em>(dead, dead, dead)</em> their very forms manifestations of Merlin’s fear and loneliness.</p><p>Merlin had withdrawn from society for a couple of decades and after he’d reintroduced himself into public places, he’d immediately thrown himself right in. The memories of seeing his dead friends again, only to have it torn away, making it hard to cope. Merlin managed; after all, it’s not like he had much of a choice.</p><p>A few centuries after Merlin first saw the ghosts, he was a prominent member of the royal court. The knights in the corner didn’t seem out of place, but Merlin recognised them instantly. He would know those faces anywhere. Merlin forced himself not to react; he knew that if the knights truly were there, then someone else would question their presence.</p><p>No one asked. No one saw. Merlin only wished he hadn’t gotten used to the crushing disappointment that came with the hallucinations.</p><p>The next prominent time Merlin saw the hallucinations, was during the war. Bombs were being dropped and his gas mask hadn’t been packed away yet, Nimeuh, Morgause, and Morgana watched him from no-mans-land. He aimed his gun and his eyes burned gold as he protected his fellow brothers-in-arms.</p><p>It was the first time Merlin had seen Morgause and Nimeuh, but it wasn’t the first he’d seen Morgana. She was a regular visitor, sometimes wild, screaming that he’d killed her, he’d killed her, he’d killed her.</p><p>More often than not, she was the Morgana he’d been friends with. The Morgana who thought justice and peace was something to strive for. The times she was the Morgana he’d killed, (the one who fought for revenge, who killed out of spite,) Merlin couldn’t look anyone in the eye.</p><p>Merlin saw Arthur the most. Every time he hallucinated a dead loved one Arthur showed up. Arthur’s death was on his hands and he could still feel the weight of Arthur’s body as he held his king until he died. Merlin saw Arthur the most, and that haunted him more than he could ever fully admit to himself.</p><p>Merlin saw the dead, Merlin saw ghosts, Merlin hallucinated his family. Merlin had been alone for one and a half thousand years.</p><p>If his family was coming back Merlin figured it would have been years (decades, centuries) before.</p><p>The next time Merlin saw the faces of the dead he ignored them until someone put a hand on his shoulder. The kindly stranger asked Merlin what the men and women in the period dress were doing in the library. Merlin didn’t know how he didn’t just melt into a puddle of overly happy and still very disbelieving warlock. Lancelot gripped his hand and Gwaine gave him a hug, but Merlin only had eyes for Arthur.</p><p>Arthur who was hugging him as tightly as he could, Arthur who was whispering in his ears. Arthur who was repeating the same words over and over again.</p><p>“We love you. We are here.”</p>
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